


In Love and War

by redrobinhood



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, F/M, Order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24676969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redrobinhood/pseuds/redrobinhood
Summary: Ahsoka refuses to let go of Maul's shuttle, resulting in unintended destruction.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	In Love and War

Ahsoka strained as she tried to hold back the shuttle. There was a part of her that couldn’t believe that she had this much strength in the force, but most of her was focused on bringing the shuttle back to the hanger floor. But then what would they do. Would she and Rex escape with Maul or would they leave him behind to perish?

Ahsoka heard from somewhere in the distance the clash of blaster fire on armor and a grunt of pain. “Can’t hold them off! Too many of them!” But she was too far into the force to react. She felt the shuttle tug back towards her and she began to bring it down slowly.

She heard the thud of another blaster bolt connecting behind her and the hard exhale of breath knocked from lungs. Pain surged through her through the force and she lost her focus as her consciousness returned to her body. Maul’s ship took off as she turned to see Rex hit the ground, a small plume of smoke rising from his torso. Across the hanger, Jesse lowered his blaster. Dodging blaster fire, Ahsoka ran to her fallen captain and dragged his body behind the nearest shelter, a crate that had been toppled by the shuttle.

Once hidden, the clones stopped shooting at them, but they were regrouping to advance on the lone Jedi.

Ahsoka set Rex against the crate as gently as she could with his chest heaving against every movement. She took off his helmet to see the face of the man she had tried so hard to save. It was contorted in pain. She lay one hand on his chest and rested the other on his jaw. His breathing was still labored, but she could feel it slowing down and growing shallow.

“I’m so sorry.” Her voice broke on the last word and she paused to regain her voice. “I should have s-”

Rex shushed her with a single finger against her lips. “Don’t be sorry… commander” It was all he could get out. He allowed his hand fell to her shoulder.

Ahsoka could feel the advancing clones through the force. She needed to leave, but she couldn’t leave Rex. She fought back a sob and embraced the clone. She felt his other arm reach around her waist and pull her close. When she rose from the embrace she stopped and leaned forward again. She was surprised to see him mirroring her movement and even more surprised when his lips met hers. She could taste the salt from his tears and a taste that she could only describe as that of the war, likely from his helmet. She embraced it, and they stayed like that until Rex broke away for air.

“You need… to go.” He pushed her hips back from his body. She could barely hear his words over the roar of destruction around them. “Leave me… ‘Soka.”

“No. No, I’m not leaving you!” She had to leave him. Rex slowly pulled out the thermal detonator that was usually clipped to the back of his belt.

“Go.” His voice was firmer. “I… I love you. Go.”

* * *

Jesse walked towards the crate that his brother, no, the traitor clone, was sheltered by. The traitor was leaned up against the crate where the Jedi had left him. His head hung down and his breathing was loud and growing more shallow with every move of his chest. As Jesse approached, the traitor lifted his head to look him in the eye. Jesse knelt to inspect the wound in the traitor’s stomach. His shot had hit the traitor through his belt where the underlying plastoid-alloy was thinner. His gut had taken the full force of the blaster bolt. It wasn’t an immediately fatal wound, but nevertheless, the traitor would soon die. Jesse didn’t notice the round capsule that rolled past him, the sound was lost among the noise of the Venator shearing itself apart in the moon’s atmosphere.

“CT-7567, you have aided and abetted a traitor of the Grand Army of the Republic. You are in violation of Order 66, and as such will be executed for treason.” Jesse stood, raised his blaster, and fired a single shot. He watched as his former captain’s head hit the crate from the force of the blast.

Jesse never got to know if he would’ve felt remorse.

* * *

Ahsoka hit the ground of the repair bay hard. Above her the metal floor still sizzled from her blades and she could hear clones preparing to follow her. She took off towards the docked ships, desperately searching for one that was flyable. She spotted a Y-wing at the end of the bay and threw herself into the cockpit, sealing it above her. Her hands clenched the steering, but before she could do anything more she was hit by another wave of immense pain through the force.

_Rex…_

Then she was falling.

She looked desperately for the Venator among the debris and located it in time to see the dissipating blast from the explosion that had loosened her ship. She knew there was nothing more she could do for Rex. Starting up the Y-wing’s engine she pulled away from the debris and watched as the Venator hit the surface of the moon.

* * *

As soon as the landing gear touched the ground Ahsoka was out of the cockpit and running to the downed ship. The front of the ship had shorn off, leaving the hanger bay exposed. She ran past the bodies of the clones, past the bodies of the men that she had served with for years, and threw herself into the still smoldering hanger in search of the one she had served with the longest.

She found him, thrown against the hanger wall. Despite his proximity to the blast, Rex’s body was unscathed by the fire of the explosion. She knelt beside him and took his head in her hands. He was already cold to the touch. Feeling wetness, she drew back one hand to find it covered in blood. It was seeping from his ears and from a laceration on the back of his skull. The fire hadn’t touched him, but the force of the explosion or the ship’s impact had.

She took in his face. His lips were slightly parted, as if he was about to speak, and his glassy eyes stared unfocused into the wrecked hanger around them. With a sob, she closed his eyes. She could have almost pretended he was sleeping, if it wasn’t for the mark of a blaster bolt between his brows.

She leaned down and kissed his forehead above the offending mark. Her craving not satisfied she leaned down again and kissed his lips once more. They still tasted like war, and tears, but now they also tasted like smoke and they did not move against hers. She sat beside him for a long time, stroking his head among the wreckage of their former lives.

* * *

Ahsoka stood over the grave. It had been the first one that she had dug. But not the last. Certainly not the last. She held one of her lightsabers in her hand, the other one had been lost in the crash. No one could know that she had survived. They would certainly suspect that someone had survived the crash, thanks to the missing shuttle and the graves, but they could not suspect that it was her who survived.

 _“I… I love you. Go.”_ She tried to picture him in that moment. Injured and in pain, but alive. She couldn’t. She tried to picture him in the times before, perhaps with a rare smile on his lips. She couldn’t do that either. Not anymore.

 _“Rex.”_ She had looked up to see the troopers advancing, nearly upon them. She dug her lightsabers into the floor and carved out a circle to the maintenance bay below. She could no longer remember his face in the moment, but she remembered her words. _“I love you too.”_

_Then she was gone._

She ignited the lightsaber one last time and stared into its blue light. She could no longer feel her master in the force either. With hesitation, she turned the blade off and placed it at the base of the pole that held up the blue and white helmet. The one with the jaig eyes.

Ahsoka stepped back to take one last look at the graveyard that she had created. This was the end. It was the end of the Jedi, the end of the Clone Wars, and the end of the clones.

The purple rays of the sunset found the Y-wing climbing into the stratosphere as across the galaxy the sun set upon the Republic.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a gifset that slowed down the shuttle scene and realized that when Ahsoka jumps in to save Rex she deflects a shot that would've killed him otherwise. Also had a new keyboard that needed breaking in... I don't even ship them but it was the perfect scenario for the fic so that happened.


End file.
